Ships and methods of building the same



I. W. MANGONE SHIPS AND METHODS OF BUILDING THE SAME Filed May 11, 1964 lOb H3 lOc INVENTOR IVAN W.MANGONE yyyy May 31, 1966 lOc lO/b United States Patent 3,253,565 SHIPS AND METHODS OF BUILDING THE SAME Ivan W. Mangone, Mangone & Cauavier Boat, Co., 6716 Fail-field St., Houston 23, Tex. Filed May 11, 1964, Ser. No. 366,231 1 Claim. (Cl. 114-65) This invention relates to new and useful improvements in the art of building ships, boats and similar other vessels. In conventional ship building it has been the practice to first lay the keel and then to construct the entire ships body from the keel upwards. While this practice has been followed for hundreds of years, it has several disadvantages, as for example, the necessity for concentrating both material and labor directly at the point of construction and the resultant inability to carry out diverse operations at diverse sites. Also, not the least of such disadvantages is the rigid infiexibilityof the building procedure which always results in a ship of a particular size being constructed on a particular keel,- with no variation in length or beam being possible once the construction is undertaken.

The principal object of the invention is to eliminate the disadvantages above outlined, this being attained by a novel method of ship building in which the ships body is assembled from a plurality of prefabricated, individual body sections which are joined together along vertical planes extending longitudinally and/or transversely of the ships body. As such, the individual body sections may be conveniently prefabricated at separate locations on a horizontal base line or surface corresponding to the vertical planes along which the sections are subsequently joined. Moreover, prefabrication of the body sections completely eliminates the conventional necessity of :laying the keel and permits ships of various length and beam dimensions to be assembled from more-or-less standardized sectional component-s.

With the foregoing more important object and features in view and such other objects and features as may become apparent as this specification proceeds, the invention will be understood from the following description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, wherein like characters of reference are used to designate like parts, and wherein:

FIGURE 1 is a view taken along a vertical plane transverse of a ships body, with lines indicating how the body may be longitudinally divided into sections;

FIGURE 2 is a view showing a body section on a horizontal base line;

FIGURES 3 and 4 are other views showing body sections on horizontal base lines;

FIGURE 5 is a View, similar to FIGURE 1, of a smaller ships body assembled from the sections of FIGURE 3;

FIGURE 6 is another view taken along a vertical plane transverse of the ships body, with longitudinal divisions indicated thereon; and

FIGURE 7 is a plan view of the ships body with longitudinal and transverse sectional divisions.

Referring now to the accompanying drawings in detail, more particularly to FIGURES 1 and 2, the numeral 10 designates an assembled ships body as viewed, in FIGURE 1, along a transverse vertical plane. The numeral 11 indicates the longitudinal center line or cen tral longitudinal plane of the body, and if the body is considered to be divided along this plane into two halves 3,253,565 Patented May 31, 1966 or sections, such individual halves or sections may be designated as 10a.

In accordance with the ship building method of the invention the body sections 10a are individually prefabricated, each section being erected as shown in FIG- URE 2 upon a horizontal base line or surface 12, corresponding to the vertical plane 11 along which the two sections are subsequently joined in the ships assembly. In other words, the individual sections are prefabricated while laying on their side on the horizontal base line or surface, the base side of the section subsequently becoming a face by which it is joined to a mating section along the vertical division plane 11 of the ships assembly. The joining of the sections is effected by welding, riveting, bolting, or in any other suitable manner.

Referring again to FIGURE 1, the lines 13 indicate for illustrative purposes other vertical planes along which the ships body may be divided, such planes extending in spaced parallel relation to the central plane 11 at opposite sides of the latter. In such a division, each of the bodysections 10a is further divided into two complemental sections 1011 and 10c, in which event that body sections 10b, 100 are individually prefabricated upon the horizontal base line 12 as already described in connection with the section 10a, prior to their assembly into the ships body 10.

The flexibility of the building method of the invention will be apparent from FIGURES 1 and 5, wherein FIGURE 1 shows the body sections 1% and 100 assembled into a ship of a relatively wide beam, but in FIG- URE 5 the sections 1% have been omitted and the section 100 assembled into a ship. of a relatively narrow beam.

Manifestly, the ships body may be sectioned along several vertical planes extending, like the planes 13, in spaced parallel relation to the central longitudinal plane 11, as exemplified at 14 and 15 in FIGURE 6. Like FIGURES 1 and 5, FIGURE 6 shows a transverse, vertical view of the ships body, and while FIGURES 1 and 5 are views taken in the forward part of the ship, FIG- URE 6 is taken amidships or closer toward the stern. FIGURE 6 also illustrates at 16 that the plane of division between the prefabricated sections need not necessarily be a fiat plane, but may be offset or staggered, if so preferred.

The plan view of the ships body 10 shown in FIG- URE 7 illustrates the aforementioned sectioning of the ship along longitudinal lines or planes, for example, the planes 11', 13 and 15, and in addition it shows the method of the invention applied to sectioning of the ships body along transverse planes, as at 17 and 18, for example. By virtue of the latter the ships body is divided longitudinally as well as transversely into individually prefabricated sectional components which may be moreor-less standardized so as to facilitate assembly of different ships with various length and beam dimensions.

While in the foregoing there has been described and shown the preferred arrangement of practicing the method of the invention, various modifications and equivalents may be resorted to, lying within the spirit and scope of the invention as claimed.

What is claimed as new is:

A method of constructing a vessels hull, comprising the steps of prefabricating a plurality of individual complemental hull sections on a horizontal surf-ace so that the bottom side of each prefabricated hull section resting on said horizontal surface is a complemental mating side for another h-ull section in a vertical plane within an erected hull, transposing said individual hull sections by rotating the same through substantially 90 degrees in a vertical plane and by bringing the same together so that the mating sides of the respective sections are vertically disposed and in abutment with one another, and joining the mating sides of the sections together to form a complete hull.

References Cited by the Examiner UNITED STATES PATENTS 1,418,629 6/1922 Crossley et al. 11477 X 2,569,611 10/1951 Jenkins. 3,011,252 12/1961 Svensson 11465 MILTON BUCHLER, Primary Examiner.

T. M. BLIX, Assistant Examiner. 

